The Nightlight loses power.

By best count, I’ve been to The Nightlight in Bellingham five times: Sharon Jones (twice!), The Asylum Street Spankers, one elusive drinking time wherein I’m sure there was music but the details are hazy, and once, the first time, to meet Matt Feigenbaum.

Matt Feigenbaum is the owner and proprietor of the Nightlight. At the time, I was the Specialty Music Director at KUGS. Feigenbaum had invited the staff down to inspect the space, give feedback, and start a relationship between the city’s first real venue draw (and I say that knowing all the amazing spaces up in the Ham. <3s, kids!) and the students who ran those 100-watts. It was a sweet gesture, indicative of the space, which is why it increases the vacuum in my heartsuck to read Feigenbaum’s last long letter to the mailing list:

Greetings Nightlight Family and Friends:

I’m sorry it has taken me so long to make this formal announcement but, as those who know me will attest, this is a very hard letter for me to write. As many of you already know, The Nightlight will be closing its doors after the final performance this Saturday, January 26. The last show features the March Fourth Marching Band from Portland, OR, and is being presented by the good folks at Boogie Universal. I can think of no better way to end The Nightlight’s 3.5 year run than with an act with a 12 piece horn section, a 10 piece drum/percussion corps, circus performers, multicultural diversity, and the soul and passion for music pulsing in their veins. I hope you will come down, raise your glass, and celebrate (in my humble opinion) one great live music venue before it fades to black.

Money. Ultimately, not enough of it. That’s why this decision had to be made. Specifically, it was the debt incurred getting The Nightlight open and operating it under financial duress every single day. We tried our damndest to clear the debt as fast as we could, in fact made tremendous progress, but it eventually got the best of us. When The Nightlight opened its doors on September 16, 2004, we didn’t have a dime of working capital to our name. In fact, a combination of construction delays, permit “issues”, my inexperience, the unknown “surprises” encountered while renovating space in a 110 year old building, even an act of costly and malicious vandalism put us so far in the hole by opening day that we couldn’t even see a pinprick of light at the end of the tunnel. Should we have found ourselves in this position? Maybe, maybe not. Should we have packed it in right then and there? Some may think so. Not me. I don’t regret one single minute of it. I would (and will) do it again.

Opening and operating a live music venue of this size and caliber, even without the financial difficulties that plagued The Nightlight since Day 1, is a huge undertaking, here or anywhere else for that matter. Much more often than not, these businesses fail in the first year. This is a very tough business. We sell art (and booze to accompany it) and selling art is always a challenge. It takes time to figure out what works and what doesn’t, to understand your market, to build a business. Bellingham itself presents a unique set of marketing challenges, which is also one of the reasons why Bellingham is such an amazing and wonderful place. Compounding all of this, I made tons of mistakes along the way and, yes, also had to deal with an extra-large helping of crap, legitimate or not. All told, I needed a good amount of money to forge ahead and I don’t have it. Barring some form of quasi-divine intervention (read: big pot of money dropping from sky), The Nightlight’s run w
ill be ending much sooner than I and many others would have liked.

But you know what? The Nightlight accomplished some pretty amazing and extraordinary things in its all-too-brief 3.5 year existence. I am heartbroken right now, but I am also so f’ing proud of The Nightlight, of what we accomplished, of what The Nightlight represents, of The Nightlight’s contribution to Bellingham’s rich and diverse musical history, and of the fact that The Nightlight (hopefully) is now part of a bigger picture, a bigger vision spearheaded by the true pioneers of Bellingham music – the 3B, the Factory, Speedy O Tubbs, Chiribins, The Green Frog, the Wild Buffalo, and the list goes on. It has truly been my honor and privilege, folks.

None of this would have been possible without the tremendous efforts of many, many people. The danger in thanking people by name is that you may will forget some people deserving of mention. If I do, I humbly apologize in advance. I will do my best. In no order of priority:

I would like to thank, from the bottom of my heart, every single customer that passed through The Nightlight’s doors. Thank you for your patronage and support. Thank you for supporting live music. I hope that you will continue to do so for as long as you shall live.

I would like to thank every single artist and performer that has graced The Nightlight’s stage and walls. Thank you for creating art. Thank you for sharing it. Thank you for leaving it all on the stage every damn night. Thank you for inspiring me and countless others.

[A long list of names you're not likely to read. They've been placed in the comments in case your curiosity gets the better of you.]

So what happens now? I guess there are two different questions there and I don’t know the answer to either. Yet. As far as The Nightlight goes, I’m going to keep buying lottery tickets as I go through the process of selling the business. If lightning strikes, its game on. Short of that, I hope to be able to pass the torch to a new owner committed to live music in Bellingham. Time will tell.

As far as the Bellingham live music scene in general, time will also tell. I don’t subscribe to the Chicken Little “sky is falling” perspective and, despite the loss of several venues in the last few years, do not believe that the end is nigh. People have been making music since the start of time and will continue until the end of time. This will never be silenced. But there is work to be done to make sure that live music remains an integral and vital and healthy part of this community. Maybe I’m being overdramatic, but to me this is a moral imperative and I’m sticking around and will continue to work towards this goal.

But every single one of you must do the same. It is not enough to sit on a barstool, in a coffee shop, a classroom, or on a couch at home saying how things oughta be but never backing up those words, no matter how intelligent or accurate they are, with action. This is our community, we get to say what happens here, and this is our responsibility not our luxury. I’m sorry for preaching but live music is very important to me , Bellingham is home to me, and I cannot fathom this amazing community without a strong, vibrant, diverse culture. I will shut up now.

I thank you!

Matt Feigenbaum

I’d wax melodic on the sorry state of music in the hamlet of Bell, but we’re seeing a similar shift here, away from culturally resonant spaces towards transient irrelevance. More chains, less strange, unique places that make a city livable. All of which is why I really love the tone of this letter: it’s hope tempered by fire, a fight.